MovieChat Forums > Shut In (2016) Discussion > Everything she did was justified.

Everything she did was justified.

posted 9 years ago by WermhatsWormHat
7 replies | jump to latest

It seems like people don't agree with her vigilante justice on here. This girl is Batman. A pedo stole her childhood so now she is the scourge of pedos. Seems reasonable to me, kill em all. She struggles with whether her vigilante form of justice is warranted for the murderous thieves and the snitch who invade her home because of her strong conscience, but ultimately makes all the right decisions about them. She was a great heroic protagonist to me, her quest for vengeance is retired at the end and she can be at peace, great story.

[–] Neffys 9 years ago

I also saw some form of vigilance in her, and I understood why she did what she did together with her brother. Less pedos on the streets (and I bet they did the research to be sure they were in fact guilty as we all know how easily they escape justice by the law. They were the Dexters of pedos)

"I'd like to keep Spike as my pet"- Illyria, Angel S. 5

[–] loreleiu-285-663104 9 years ago

Those guys that broke into "Her" home got what they deserved!!! Enough said........

[–] cybermastah 8 years ago

You said 'everything', and um....I'd like to point out that when her friend visited her after the villains were locked up, she was holding on to a knife and I was pretty sure she was about to be one friend short if Dan's screams had convinced the lady to stay and look.

[–] Rayvio 8 years ago

not that it takes away from your point but the woman wasn't her friend, she was the lawyer her brother had hired, also the only person other than Dan who came to the funeral

but that scene was indeed to show that Anna was not completely justified in everything she did. she was at least considering killing an innocent in order to protect her secret (whether or not she would have been able to go through with it we can only guess). Anna was clearly meant to be a sympathetic character but not a completely heroic one

~~~
I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me...
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[–] Stovepipe99 8 years ago

I bet they did the research to be sure they were in fact guilty as we all know how easily they escape justice by the law.

I'm not sure why this is a reasonable assumption. I mean, at the end she had JP put on the shirt to act out the "dad" routine. At that point he had broken into her home and tried to steal from her, but he hadn't actually hurt her. In fact, he is the person who keeps Perry from doing her harm in the beginning. He says things like "She'll pay" after she has killed his brother.

As the other poster pointed out, she was ready and willing to skewer the friend/lawyer in order to keep her secret from being revealed.

There are a ton of reasons why her actions are not justified (aside from the stabbing in the bathroom and the attack on Perry, both of which I'd count as self-defense). There is such a thing as people being falsely convicted, for starters. There are cases of people being branded sex offenders because when they were 17 they had sex with their 16 year old girlfriends. I work with kids and am the last person to get all rah-rah on behalf of sex offenders--many of whom I would not mind if they never saw the light of day again.

But Anna and her brother weren't acting as good citizens. I wouldn't even call them vigilantes. They had a sick compulsion--basically their own version of perversion--to act out their murder of their father. Why make the men dress as the dad? Why put them in a replica of Anna's childhood bedroom? If it was really about vigilantism or protecting the public, why not just lure the perverts into the house and quick bullet to the head? Their need for the ritual (and the clear investment of time and money into their "stage" in the basement) reveals the depth of their illness. You might not be sad about the overall outcome (dead sex offenders), but it's pretty clear that the motive and method of the killings is pretty gross.

[–] psychopathyrd 8 years ago

Not according to U.S. Law it wasn't. Anna is going to prison or the loony bin (best case scenario)

If she wasn't such a freak, and no I don't mean her mental disorder... I mean her past vigilantism with her brother. She could have simply called the police once she had the intruders trapped in the basement. It is at this point she is only concerned about the implications of the law.

And your hero 'Dexter' is no hero. He's a flaming hypocrite.

[–] Stovepipe99 8 years ago

And your hero 'Dexter' is no hero. He's a flaming hypocrite.

Having watched two seasons of the TV show and read the first two books, I'm not sure that hypocrite is the right word to describe the character.

Dexter is a sociopath with violent tendencies who, through intervention at a young age, was taught to direct his violent impulses at "bad guys". I feel like Dexter tends to acknowledge the pleasure he gets from killing, and the only thing that makes him "better" than those he kills is that he doesn't direct his violence at innocent victims. So the "net loss" of Dexter killing is one dead killer, while the "net loss" of his victims killing tends to be dead women or children or whoever. (Again, this is based on what I've seen and read, but I know the show and books continued past what I saw).

In the Dexter series, he can only control his impulses for so long. In Intruders it wasn't clear to me if Anna needed to kill, or if she simply derived pleasure from the ritual that she had developed with her brother. (Or, a third option, if the brother was a violent sociopath who tricked his sister into helping him kill by dressing it up as taking out the evil pedophiles).